Added carbon and GFO, now skimmer pulsing

I'm very interested to hear your results. Hopefully, all goes well and you get the good solid sound of air being pulled into the pump.

 

I got it a week ago but the venturi is horribly loud even with a silencer and I was getting a ton of micro bubbles even more than the original pump. I set it 8.75 inches of water and it seemed to wet then i raised it to 5.75 and it looked to be doing better and was a little more quiet. Im not sure if them pump needs a break in period it was just getting out of hand with the microbubbles and noise. I was also under the assumption that the new pump was coming with a venturi specifically for that pump so i had to mod the old one onto the new pump. Im just so frustrated with theis thing I should have just got a reef Octo. I think im going to look into the Reef Octopus BH90 its a hang on back. But for now only having a 10 gallon sump I can only do so much.

 

Reef Octopus does have "Remote skimmers" aka skimmers that do not need to be IN water.

 

Well that sucks. Sorry to hear that. No room in your ten gallon for a NWB110?

 

I have a slight update. I took the skimmer out for a few days and the other night i was messing around with the water level in a bucket. In about 4 inches of water I was able to get it to quiet down. I do have a ton of bubbles coming out of the adjustment pipe on the skimmer. The skimmate looks wet and it hasnt really been consistant. Ill try to post a vid of how it looks maybe its right? The area for the skimmer is about 10"x9" I would have got the octo if it would fit thats why i went for the NAC being small. Anyway I am happy i was able to quiet it down ill get a vid up here. And thanks for the "Remote skimmer" option.

 

Have you had any luck with the new pump? How are things going?

 

This thread is really all over the place. So OP, did you get things squared away?

Just for info... m2434 gave good suggestions, but it is still unclear to me if you are talking about surging skimmer output, or inconstant skimate output... those are two different discussions. And it matters how you go about troubleshooting, and what you are saying is the results.

As was said, GFO and GAC will certainly change available DOCs for the skimmer, and it can effect skimate production.

Surging skimmer out put, is nothing more than a plugged air flow, or a inconsistent water level. Looking at the pic you posted of your sump, I saw a baffle, but the water level was well below it. And 4" is definitely hurting skimmer performance.

Water level changes have HUGE impacts on how much air is pulled. And more or less air, means more or less water will be pumped into the skimmer. So changes in water level the skimmer is sitting in have huge effects, and so does restricting air flow, basically turning the pump into a pure water pump.

And cavitation has nothing to do with needle wheel skimmers. So I realize this is old, and you may have gotten things settled out, but just offering some tips, and perhaps your skimmer performance is still not ideal, even if the original problem went away.

 

Water level ended up being too low is all I could come up with. The strange thing is that it worked perfectly at tat water level before I added the gfo and carbon. To fix the problem, I removed said skimmer and sump and replaced it with a sump I made custom and a NWB110 and haven't looked back.

I don't have a picture of it all in my tank but it looks and works great. I have my NWB at 7in water and it pulls some real nice skimmate. For a first time acrylic build, the sump was quite an undertaking, but the result was definitely worth it.

 

Oh, and thanks for the input. We were actually trying to help out another reefer on this thread with the exact same problem.

 

Good deal. And I read the rest of the thread and looked at the video of the "pulsing". Ya...that isn't "pulsing", that is simply the skimmer working at the ragged edge of what it can do.

You have to try to separate what is happening, and then try to isolate the problem. Is it actually skimmer performance, or has the operating conditions changed? It could be one or both. I actually think in your case it was both... conditions did change that exposed performance issues related to improper skimmer depth.

We'll see if the other poster chimes in. Looks like he posted for this thread alone.